THE NEWS REQUIREMENT

The competitive examination that will be held in twenty colleges throughout the country this afternoon for the Times Current Events Contest, as described elsewhere in today's CRIMSON, is but the third that has taken place since the inception of the plan, and already it has reached the dignity of an institution. The advantages of any scheme that helps develop an intelligent reading public are apparent. Equally obvious is the desirability of encouraging an interest in affairs of the day among a class that will supply many of the future leaders of the nation, and these two factors help explain the interest aroused by the contest.

There is another consideration less evident at first sight. A significant result of the first two contests has been the relations that have been established between the offices of the Times and the leaders in the examinations. Last year the winner of the competition, a Princeton senior, secured a permanent position on the editorial board and in many other cases contacts were made that should prove productive in later years.

The time immediately following graduation is probably at once the most decisive period in the life of the college graduate and at the same time the one most subject to purely fortuitous influences. Any arrangement to help undergraduates prepare for the transition would be welcomed, and in particular such a one as in the present instance, where the individual's interests coincide so directly with those of the prospective employer. To be sure, only a very small fraction of even the leading contestants can expect to benefit in so direct a way, but the experiment is in the right direction and offers one means of solution to a difficult problem.